Will these two babies steal the crown as the cutest new arrivals at an East Anglian zoo?

Two Asian small-clawed otter cubs born at Banham Zoo are just starting to emerge from their nest and play in the late summer sunshine.

The pair are expecing to enthrall visitors to the East Anglian zoo over the coming months with their playful antics.

The two healthy cubs were born on July 19 to female, Tilly and male, Sam, and despite both being first-time parents, according to their keepers they are showing excellent parenting skills, sharing the daily care of the cubs.

Hot on mum's heels. Picture Banham Zoo

Otter parents prefer to keep their cubs safely tucked away from prying eyes in their nest box for the first eight to ten weeks after they are born. Keepers were only able to confirm the birth when the parents did not come out for food and they started to hear the cubs calling from inside the box.

The cubs have recently been examined by their keepers and the zoo’s vets and have confirmed that they are two healthy boys. The twins are now beginning to venture out of their nest box as they explore their outside enclosure.

Otters are incredibly sociable animals and over the coming weeks their parents will start to introduce swimming lessons to the range of skills they need to survive, just as they would in their native habitat.

The Asian small-clawed otters is the smallest of all otter species and are one of three species known as the clawless otters.

Showing their faces to the world, the new twins at Banham Zoo. Picture Banham Zoo

The otters inhabit shallow, fast flowing waters in Southeast Asia and in the wild have a varied diet of crabs, snails, frogs, young birds, eggs, fish and small mammals.

The species is classed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Habitat destruction from palm oil farming, water pollution, hunting and over fishing have all led to a rapid decline in their numbers in the wild. The IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) estimates the global population has declined by up to 30% over the last 30 years.